


Companionship (Stay with Me)

by Nikolaila



Category: Bleach
Genre: AU, M/M, Relationships in Space, Sometimes Life is Awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22061248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikolaila/pseuds/Nikolaila
Summary: People are people, even in space. Sometimes the required conversations in relationships are hard to have but necessary to hold.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 81
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	Companionship (Stay with Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Relationships in space. Sometimes there are Alien Biology things your partner should know.

_ ping!  _

He groaned and tried to ignore the communications request signal that had jarred him awake. With any luck it would be only an oddly clever spam artist which his program would detect and shut down as they weren’t on his allowed contact list and he could go back to ...

_ ping! Brrrrip! _

... sleep. Fuck. That was the program’s identifier for Yoruichi, he wasn’t going to get any sleep until he answered that.

ping! Brrrrip!  
  


Sighing softly he slipped out of bed, grabbed a robe off the floor, wrapped himself in it, sat at the terminal, and accepted her call. The sudden flood of light as she appeared on the screen and he appeared on hers, made his eyes twitch. 

“Kisuke, what took you so long to answer? You’re usually in your lab and respond instantly at this time ... of ... night.” A sly grin slowly spread across her face as she finished a spin in her chair and leaned forwards to intently study her screen. 

He gave her a dry look. And caught sight of his own image in the lower corner of the screen. Oh. Thats why she had gained twelve levels of smug in under five seconds, he was wearing Ichigo’s robe. And had a bite mark still visible on his collar bones. Damn. He was going to be dealing with a smug, inquisitive, curious Yoruichi instead of a whining, bored, gloating Yoruichi. At least this call would be short, sadly the next one likely would not.

“Any reason in particular you decided to call towards the end of Arcadia Station’s night cycle? And don’t say you were unaware of the cycles. I’ve lived on this station for fifty years and they haven’t changed it once.”

She leaned back in her chair insolently, with a grin, and lazily gestured with her hands as she spoke.

“Oh, I was just calling to see if you were still a hermit in your lab, just to complain a bit about some of the idiots I’ve encountered over the past year or so. Perhaps to see if I could egg you into attending a party or two, get you introduced to a couple of people. But it seems that I’ve interrupted your play time. Having a good time with your newest play toy of a bed warmer?”

“Oh, yes quite. They’re very good at being that.” He said dryly.

Yoruichi cackled. Then remarked, “You’ll have to introduce me to them if they stick around for a decade. Anyone who is willing to stay that long is at least a little bit interesting. Until then don’t tell me any details the image is probably prettier in my head than what the reality is. After all you do tend towards the skinny and academically minded.”

“Quite true.”

“Don’t die of too much fun now.” 

“I’ll do my best ...” and the screen turned off before he finished. He sighed. And mumbled. “That’s Yoruichi for you.”

“Hmm. She seems interesting.”

Kisuke sighed, turned the lights on to dim, and spun in his chair so he could get a better glimpse of Ichigo. This felt like an awkward conversation starter. At least the view of Ichigo sitting upright in their bed, shirtless, with the covers in his lap and hair in disarray was nice to look at.

Except ... he didn’t look irritated or angry. Just sleepy.

“Yes, that was Yoruichi. We’ve known each other for over half a millennia. She’s Illiadian as well. We, as Illiadians, tend to treat event scheduling for conversations and catchups to once a decade or so once you hit over three hundred. Time just moves on and unless we spend a lot of time interacting with people whohave much shorter default lifespans or deal with complicated quick reaction chemistry, we tend to lose a sense of time importance.”

“Yoruichi tends to call when she pleases so I could be called twice a day, every other day, thrice a year, or skip three years. It just depends, but it’s always nice to confirm that she hasn’t gotten herself killed through either personal stupidity brought on by alcohol’s deleterious effects, or by the stupidity of others. Just because we’re Illiadians and will live to see maybe three millennia doesn’t mean we can’t die before then from illness or injury or bad reactions to various things.”

Ichigo nodded along. “Makes sense. Are you coming back to bed?”

“What?”

“Are you coming back to bed? It’s early enough that we can get more sleep before having to get up. Or we can lay here together and talk about really damn awkward subjects with each other. Or you can sit there and we can do the same thing. It’s not as comfortable but you can do that if you need the distance to get through whatever it is you want to tell me.” Ichigo yawned and stretched idly. “I don’t really mind, choose whichever you need.”

“Oh.” Kisuke said softly as he got up from the chair, turning off the lights as he went. “What did I do to ever deserve you? You are much too kind to me.”

“Not a thing. I like your brain and your body and your company.” He slipped back down into the bed and moved to offer Kisuke a place next to him under the blanket.

Kisuke stripped out of the robe and slipped into the bed next to Ichigo. “And that is not a commonly held opinion of myself. So forgive me for not instantly believing you.”

“Mmm. So sleep or awkward conversations?”

“As much as I’d prefer to delay the conversation for the end towards never, it should probably be discussed before it gets brought up by someone else who believes you already know all the details.”

“Alright. Why and what do you think I should know about whatever it is that’s making you so nervous?”

To give himself a little longer to brace himself. Kisuke asked, “Illiadians, what do you know about them?” 

“Well, they live quite a long time, fairly durable, don’t produce any strange pheromone projections that affect the brains of other species, tend to enjoy learning new information. What kind of information depends on what they like. Haven’t yet had to throw any out of the various bars I’ve worked at as a bouncer for causing trouble.”

Which as probably intended, got a soft chuckle out of Kisuke. “Yes. That’s true. I’m guessing you’ve never heard of synergia. Or at least thought of it as a rumor.”

The answer he got after a half minute of thought was the feel of Ichigo shaking his head no. Followed by him softly telling Kisuke, “No, I can’tthink of any rumors about that regarding Illiadians. I’ve heard something like that about Denalians, but I think that refers more to how they consider marriage to be life long for all parties in a relationship. You can add members to the relationship, but you can’t legally remove them from it. Not even after death. Which is probably why their response towards discovering spousal abuse is to kill the abuser. They do have different levels of honor towards the dead depending on their actions in life.”

Kisuke smiled and softly ran his fingers though Ichigo’s hair. “Mmm. No, Illiadian synergia isn’t like Denalian synergia. Its a psi effect we produce over time on our closest companions. It’s hard to describe, but the reason Yoruichi isn’t terribly interested in meeting you until we’ve been together for at least a decade is that it usually takes that long for the psi buffering effect an Illiadian has on their long term partner takes effect. It’s an average, because most of the time we, as a people, tend towards somewhat distant relationships. The psi effect smoothes out aging and lengthens lifespans. It affects us as well which is why those who never leave the homeworld seem to never change while those of us who do fluctuate a little bit. Unless we end up utterly isolated for decades at a time it’s not a terribly noticeable change if we spend only a couple hours around another Illiadian we know well every four or five years. More like looking extremely well rested after a vacation than undergoing plastic surgery, which is what happens if you’ve lived isolated without contact for fifty years then spend a month with Illiadians you have a connection with. Connection being kin, close friends, or a long term lover.”

“Ok. That’s interesting, explains why Illiadians and their partners who are in academia don’t seem to age very much no matter how many decades it’s been since they first started their career. It’s interesting to learn that, but we’ve been together for not quite five years it shouldn’t apply yet?”

“Ten years is an average marker, the average Illiadian won’t keep track of how long they spend in the presence of their partner or close friend. But usually separations that span months at a time aren’t uncommon. I.. I think that we’ve spent at most a week apart since we started our relationship. It’s not terribly noticeable yet, you’re Starli they tend to age well and you’re in your prime but it’s the little things. I think the psi output is already smoothing your aging out.”  


Kisuke sighed softly. “I just want you to be aware of it, to know that a continued relationship with me will likely mean you’ll outlive your siblings by quite a bit. This information isn’t meant to drive you off or anything like that, but I think you need to know if this so you can make an informed decision about staying with me.”

Ichigo was quiet for a several minutes considering everything that Kisuke had brought up. But he let Kisuke keep combing his fingers through his hair so his reaction wasn’t the worst he’d ever received once he’d explained what happened to those who held long term personal relationships with any Illiadian.

Ichigo sighed softly. “My sisters are adults and their own people. They can pick their own relationships and make their own choices, they’d say I can make my own choices regarding relationships and other things. I enjoy my research into the literature of different cultures, and the synergia would let me keep my other job a bouncer longer than expected if I wanted to. How I feel about living decades if not centuries longer is, it just, it doesn’t feel quite real yet. I believe that what you told me is the truth, it explains quite a bit about Illiadian literature especially the mythology and common themes.”

He breathed sharply through his nose before continuing. “I still love you. It hasn’t changed how I feel for you, or the choices I’ve already made; I already knew that you’d probably outlive me. This just means it won’t be by as much. If you don’t get bored of me, I’ll have to change a couple of plans in my career, but it’s doable. It’ll take time to get used to it, but I’ve overcome worse. Just stick around, please?”

Kisuke sighed softly in relief and pulled Ichigo closer. “I’ll stay with you. I didn’t want you to go, but I didn’t want to force you to stay either.”

Ichigo leaned away to inspect the clock, before collapsing back on top of Kisuke. “It’s still two hours til you have to get up for a meeting and I have to go finish off my analysis of common symbology that occurs in Arcadian creation myths. It’s nap time now.”

“As you wish.” He said softly, and hoped his pessimistic view of the future would be a little bit brighter with how Ichigo didn’t run away from the strangeness that was himself.

**Author's Note:**

> For UraIchi PC4. Block 031 Love is a Choice.
> 
> I blame the discord server for egging me on.
> 
> Also I think I have issues with tenses but it’s late and I’ve stared at it too long.


End file.
